I didn’t realise that there are currently no blood-based biomarkers approved for the screening of breast cancer. And yet worldwide, breast cancer is the most common invasive cancer in women (around 23% of all cancers) and around 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime.

Although mammography is the main screening method for breast cancer, research has shown that up to 33% of cancers have already spread to the lymph nodes at times of diagnosis, and this late diagnosis limits the treatment options available.

So I am delighted to learn that Abcodia is extending its biomarker initiatives beyond pancreatic and colorectal cancers and is now seeking collaborators working in the breast cancer field.

The company has an exclusive commercial license to a UCL biobank that has been created over the last ten years and now contains over 5 million separate serum samples. Recent analyses reveal that of the 200,000 women who have donated serum samples, more than 3,600 have developed breast cancer. These volunteers have provided over 6,000 samples, up to 10 years before diagnosis and around 3,000 samples post-diagnosis. Abcodia now wishes to work with collaborators to harness value from these samples in ethically approved studies for the discovery or validation of biomarkers for breast cancer.

Abcodia would be delighted to hear from commercial organizations involved in biomarker R&D for breast cancer or academics groups with a biomarker that would benefit from access to longitudinal preclinical or post-diagnosis serum samples for further validation.

Click here to read more about its breast cancer serum samples and associated data, as well as its other biomarker initiatives.